Banking: Incorrect account number

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Reply # 785720 22-Mar-2013 22:49

sbiddle:

There is a rather big difference between a bank employee accidently setting a $10 million overdraft instead of $100000 on the correct account and somebody using internet banking transferring money into an account.

It's the same principle, someone receiving money in their bank account when they shouldn't have. It's not their money, so the original owner can claim it back.

Delorean

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Reply # 785726 22-Mar-2013 23:01

It's actually hard to get an account number wrong. They are not sequential and use a check digit (similar to a Visa card) if you mistype it, the Internet banking system will reject it.

also, if you pay to an incorrect suffix, the bank routes the money to the base account number, if this doesn't exist, the funds are returned within 3 days....

Every day the bank needs to balance all debit / credits so it can't just disappear.

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jtbthatsme

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Reply # 785745 23-Mar-2013 01:51

Well the above from Delorean is pretty much right with the others a mix of guess work and just being wrong.

You paid the money to the account they provided you. You met your obligation plain and simple.

As for the other person who possibly received that money from a legal point you could not charge someone with theft of the money as they did not take it. When $$$ leaves an account it has to reach a destination the fact it didn't bounce back within a few days meant that it has. The account owner can be contacted by the bank and a request can be made for the money to be returned.

From there they can simply say no and you can look at involving the police and they can add some weight to the request but I am certain that the person who received it has no obligation to give it back not only that there is only one person that has a right to authorise money to be taken from an account and that's the account holder. This includes the bank and any authority you have given for others to take payments such as things like your AP's. The only govt dept that has access to take $$$ from your account is IRD.

As for the OP are they asking you to pay again or just try and sort out the refund??? I would simply ask the bank to contact the account holder and ask if they would be willing to give the $$$ back or not. If so win win for you and the intended recipients, if not then I'd just simply tell them you paid to where advised to, you've asked for the bank to ask for a refund and other than that you've more than met your obligation.

Also been there done that and was lucky that AMEX twice (separate occasions) were nice and returned my rent for me to pop through to the correct bill payee can be very stressful so hope it works out.

It is always nice when these things work out but at the end of the day it's not your fault or problem if it can't be returned back.

richms

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Reply # 785828 23-Mar-2013 11:44

pankajbanga: Contact you bank , they will help you to sort it out.

No, they are totally hopeless when this happens. I had a trademe muppet that needed a refund send me the wrong account number, they sent me "someone elses" instead of their own because they couldnt read or something.

Anyway, My bank said job done by them. The recipiant bank wouldnt talk to me since I am not a customer, and the only offer I had from my bank was going to be $25 for part, then another $25 to do the other part, way more than the refund amount going to the idiot trademe buyer. Just left it and wore the red face and put a note under it, and changed my feedback on the buyer to red because they were clearly not all there, both thru the sale process which they messed me around on, and with the refund that they claim went to someone else and not them.

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Reply # 786260 24-Mar-2013 12:56

richms:
pankajbanga: Contact you bank , they will help you to sort it out.

No, they are totally hopeless when this happens. I had a trademe muppet that needed a refund send me the wrong account number, they sent me "someone elses" instead of their own because they couldnt read or something.

Anyway, My bank said job done by them. The recipiant bank wouldnt talk to me since I am not a customer, and the only offer I had from my bank was going to be $25 for part, then another $25 to do the other part, way more than the refund amount going to the idiot trademe buyer. Just left it and wore the red face and put a note under it, and changed my feedback on the buyer to red because they were clearly not all there, both thru the sale process which they messed me around on, and with the refund that they claim went to someone else and not them.

I've confirmed the fact they're hopeless at trying to chase up the money..

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mattwnz

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Reply # 786301 24-Mar-2013 14:51

jtbthatsme: Well the above from Delorean is pretty much right with the others a mix of guess work and just being wrong.

You paid the money to the account they provided you. You met your obligation plain and simple.

As for the other person who possibly received that money from a legal point you could not charge someone with theft of the money as they did not take it. When $$$ leaves an account it has to reach a destination the fact it didn't bounce back within a few days meant that it has. The account owner can be contacted by the bank and a request can be made for the money to be returned.

From there they can simply say no and you can look at involving the police and they can add some weight to the request but I am certain that the person who received it has no obligation to give it back not only that there is only one person that has a right to authorise money to be taken from an account and that's the account holder. This includes the bank and any authority you have given for others to take payments such as things like your AP's. The only govt dept that has access to take $$$ from your account is IRD.

As for the OP are they asking you to pay again or just try and sort out the refund??? I would simply ask the bank to contact the account holder and ask if they would be willing to give the $$$ back or not. If so win win for you and the intended recipients, if not then I'd just simply tell them you paid to where advised to, you've asked for the bank to ask for a refund and other than that you've more than met your obligation.

Also been there done that and was lucky that AMEX twice (separate occasions) were nice and returned my rent for me to pop through to the correct bill payee can be very stressful so hope it works out.

It is always nice when these things work out but at the end of the day it's not your fault or problem if it can't be returned back.

That sounds incorrect. So if the bank accidentally deposits a million into your account due to human error, eg they may have typed in a wrong number as part of a manual transfer at a branch , you have no obligation to pay it back? I don't think so. Any money has to be reconciled. I believe it is considered theft of it isn't returned. It is the same as finding a wallet on the street. If you take money from the wallet, which is someone else's property, it is theft, let alone the moral side of things.

richms

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Reply # 786314 24-Mar-2013 15:54

If its the banks error, they will sort it out, in my case as I had put the money into an account and it went into the account I put, there was no error on the banks part so they wouldn't reverse it.

Think about it, if people could go around reversing internet banking transfers just because it was "A mistake" then they would be as useless as checks for payment.

Richard rich.ms

mattwnz

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Reply # 786318 24-Mar-2013 16:11

richms: If its the banks error, they will sort it out, in my case as I had put the money into an account and it went into the account I put, there was no error on the banks part so they wouldn't reverse it.

Think about it, if people could go around reversing internet banking transfers just because it was "A mistake" then they would be as useless as checks for payment.

For reversals the other party does have to agree, and I have had this problem happen in the past wheere someone has accidentally paid me into my account, as they had my bank details in their syste,. I asked the person to contact their bank to contact me, becuase I didn't want to pay the money back only to find that the bank had then reversed it out, debiting my account twice. The bank asked me to agree to the reversal, and the ammunt was reversed. Cost me in bank transaction fees though.
But if the other party don't agree, it doesn't mean they can keep the money, as it wasn't there's to begin with. I would also guess the IRD would want to know whether the money has come from. eg it isn't a gift, nor earnings. The OP would have to lodge a compliant with the police, and maybe even take the other party to the disputes tribunal to get it back. But you would have to question their morals for keeping something that isn't their's, and not already contacting their bank about it, but I guess it is becoming more and more common.

richms

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Reply # 786319 24-Mar-2013 16:16

Clearly if someone puts money in my account then it is a gift?

Richard rich.ms

mattwnz

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Reply # 786323 24-Mar-2013 16:35

The recipient is legally required to return it, simple as that, as shown on the banking ombudsman website

"If your bank contacts you asking for your consent to reverse a payment you have received
in error, legally you must let the money be returned to its rightful owner."

http://www.bankomb.org.nz/content/download/3228/61276/file/Mistaken%20Payments%20-%20Jun%202012.pdf

jtbthatsme

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Reply # 786337 24-Mar-2013 17:19

So after reading that it is pretty much as I said. The banks is not in a position to simply transfer the money back they have to ask the person who received it. If the person refuses the person who made the incorrect payment needs to attempt to take it further if able.

The privacy act does not allow the passing of information to anyone without specific permission of the person whose details you are trying to access. THe bank could not provide the person who made the incorrect payment with any info as to who that person is.

Making a complaint to the police although the correct step to take could see them asking who they are trying to persue for the alleged offense which in a lot of cases would not be able to be given unless you paid the wrong friend or something like that.

My comments were based on govt policy around trying to do exactly that for clients (W & I, Studylink) they have no ability to just give the money back (as in get the banks to reverse payments or reissue payment as for most $$$ are usually something we don't like to give away). If a error is made by someone it is not a companies responsibility to fix it it is actually the clients.

Morally wrong to not give it back, illegal not 100% that it is classed at that either since if the incorrect recipient has spent the money there are grounds for them (under certain circumstances mentioned in the pdf link) that they would not be required to repay the money. Those circumstances are part of the basis for considerration of a debt write off from somewhere like Work and Income and or Studlink. (Please note a write off is not the same as a disestablsihment oddly a lot of people see it like that)

nunz

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Reply # 786355 24-Mar-2013 19:08

mattwnz:
sbiddle:

There is a rather big difference between a bank employee accidently setting a $10 million overdraft instead of $100000 on the correct account and somebody using internet banking transferring money into an account.

It's the same principle, someone receiving money in their bank account when they shouldn't have. It's not their money, so the original owner can claim it back.

Actually no - coz when you draw on a 10million OD you owe the bank money, and interest and ...

Not paying it makes you liable to all sorts of things.

nunz

Wheelbarrow01

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Reply # 804213 23-Apr-2013 12:01

Sorry - this is a very long cautionary tale but I thought it was relevant.

Last October my friend went to his pay clerk at work and organised for his rent to be paid direct to his landlord from the pay office before he had the chance to spend it. It sounded like a good idea at the time...

Come February this year, he gets an irate phonecall from his landlord saying that she is sick of having no rent paid into her account, and he is being evicted.

A check with his pay clerk reveals that he gave the wrong bank account number to deposit into, so he called his bank and explained the situation. After some cursory investigation, the bank informed him that the money had been going into a valid account with a similar number. Further checks also revealed that the recipient of the money didn't touch it for the first couple of weeks, but after that they were going to a cash machine each Thursday at 6am and withdrawing the $360 as soon as it hit the account.

The bottom line is that the recipient has made off with almost $7000, and the bank states it is not their problem as they only acted on the information they were provided. The pay clerk says not his problem either as he also only acted on the info he was given.

Although my friend clearly supplied incorrect bank account details to the pay clerk, it can not be established if these were provided incorrectly by the landlord, or whether my friend made the mistake himself. The landlord must, in my opinion, shoulder at least half the blame, because she chose not to check whether the rent was going into the account for roughly 5 months, which is just ridiculous. Had she acted like a normal person and chased up the rent after the first payment was missed, this all could have been fixed with no issues.

As a landlord myself, I am on internet banking every Friday checking that my tenants have all paid their rent - it's just something you need to do. It's accounting 101 really.

In this case, my friend is off to court next month to try and recover the money from the recipient, but although the bank has not given him any personal details regarding the recipient, they have advised him that the recipients accounts have very little money in them, and have suggested that the chance of getting the money back at anything more than $10 a week is very slim. His only hope is that the recipient has bought a lot of big ticket household items that the court bailiffs may be able to recover.

The landlord is not interested in any of these proceedings, so my friend still has to be out of his house by next week. It looks like it will head to the tenancy tribunal. The fact the money is owed to the landlord is not in dispute, but my friend will be arguing that it is the landlord's fault that it got so out of hand, and he is hoping the tenancy tribunal will find in his favour and will only order him to pay the arrears back at the same rate the $7000 gets paid back to him by the recipient.

freitasm

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Reply # 804230 23-Apr-2013 12:14

I would expect every bank account to have a check digit, but to my surprise this (is) was not the case here in New Zealand. Having a check digit would really reduce/remove this kind of problem.

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graemeh

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Reply # 804254 23-Apr-2013 12:43

Wheelbarrow01: As a landlord myself, I am on internet banking every Friday checking that my tenants have all paid their rent - it's just something you need to do. It's accounting 101 really.

Landlording 101 is to check the day the rent is due :)

Your friend's landlord is an idiot and deserves to lose out. It will be interesting to see what the tenancy tribunal say.

freitasm:I would expect every bank account to have a check digit, but to my surprise this (is) was not the case here in New Zealand. Having a check digit would really reduce/remove this kind of problem.

Are you sure? I though there was a check digit. I haven't been able to find direct evidence there is but this rather old payroll page says there is. http://www.ipayroll.co.nz/news/f1/2002-02-21' target='_blank'>http://www.ipayroll.co.nz/news/f1/2002-02-21

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